What video card is good for upgrading my computer?

Question

I currently have a

Matrox Graphics Mystique PCI

Chip Type : MGA-1164SG

DAC is integrated, 220 MZ

with only 4 MB

I really wanted to upgrade my computer's video card and know nothing about hardware. I have a Windows XP, with an AMD Athlon XP running at 1.7 GHZ and 512 MB RAM. If anyone knows what video card should I change it to, then please help me. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...

try this and in addition i reccomend a ram upgrade as well try newegg ram very reliable

Answer 2

You can put any PCI video card in there. Maxing out the machine's ram will help.

Bear in mind that pci is a very outdated graphics interface (was phased out for graphics cards 8 years ago when agp came in). For the last 4 years graphics cards have use pci-e interface, which at 1x is twice the bus speed of pci. PCI-E graphics cards interfaces are 16x or faster (2.0)

So the bottom line is that you can put a new graphics card in there and your machine will be a lot better in 2d. Your 3d (gaming) performance wont improve a huge amount. If the upgrade is to play games, its probably worth looking at a larger scale upgrade, which will allow you to use a current generation card. If its for another purpose, then a 512 meg or 256 meg pci card will do fine.

You might want to ignore answerer # 2. None of the parts he has suggested will fit your machine. The pci-e cards wont fit the slot. Your motherboard is ddr not ddr2 so the ram hes suggested wont fit either. And an Athlon XP slot wont support dual core.

The 2400 pro in the first answer is probably a good idea. I agree that some extra ram wouldnt hurt either, and is a relatively cost effective way to increase the performance of that machine.

Answer 3

Newegg.com and tigerdirect.ca had very good deals on graphics card. Before you buy a video card check to see if your motherboard will support it. If you are a gamer then choose a video card that has 512 mb of ram.

Video card:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/S...

Cost: $86

or

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddet...

cost: $100

Recommend upgrades:

Get 2gb of ram cost $45

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddet...

Cpu: Cost $70

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/S...